1. Most Romans were on welfare.
2. Many Roman citizens living in Rome were not ‘Italian’, but anything from German to Indian.
3. Rome had an African Emperor, Severus.
4. The last Roman Emperor had the same name as the first – Romulus.
5. Rome was only ever defeated by the French and the Romanians.
6. Rome had a population of a million.
7. Julius Caesar wiped out a million French in genocide.
8. Romans thought that pants were girly.
9. Pagan Rome could absorb other cultures by absorbing their gods. Monotheism made this impossible, and martyrdom made it impossible to attack. Christianity was one of the major reasons that Rome ultimately fell and Europe slipped into the dark ages. It only really emerged when secular culture and scientific reason developed in Italy after the middle ages with people like Galileo.